


Shite and Sugar

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Series: Rose Shelby vs. All the Bastards [13]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 02:55:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19164373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: Being a father is complicated business.





	Shite and Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> One more Tommy POV before we get back to normal...relatively speaking. This one's set about a year on from the last chapter, so Rose is nearly six and Finn is eleven. Be warned, this chapter contains some parental discipline.

It wasn’t every day that a man nearly copped a bullet in the middle of riding a whore, in his own office and first thing in the morning no less, so one could excuse Tommy for being a bit confused as to what the fuck had happened.

The glass panel of the door shattered and the framed picture of Two-Pot-Screamer, the first of their own horses to ever win a race, clattered down onto the floor; Lizzie gave a shriek and slid off him and half underneath his desk…just a little moment too soon as well.

Tommy crouched down next to her, pistol already in hand, eyes trained on the door. The one leading to the house rather than the shop, which was a bit of a worry. It wouldn’t have been the first time that some unlucky bastard with nothing left to lose had attempted to storm the shop; but no one had ever opened fire in the front room before. The shop was still empty, no one due for another hour, and Tommy had no clue who was in at the house; but it was pissing down outside, so the chances of Rosie and Finn being home were decent and Tommy didn’t enjoy that thought at all.

They’d come running at the sound of gunfire rather than make themselves scarce, knowing them.

Abandoning Lizzie to put herself back together and find her own way out, he cocked his gun and charged through into the front room, broken glass crunching under his shoes.

The room was empty.

That said, there was a gun abandoned on the carpet and a letter opener still lying on top of the small strong box by the fire place, which was now sporting some fresh scratches from being jimmied open. Fucking hell.

“Finn!” Tommy roared.

There was no reply, save the soft creak of the broken step.

“I know you’re there,” Tommy called out. “Get here, now!”

Finn appeared in the doorway, clearly unwilling to take even a single step past the threshold.

“Yea?” he asked wearily.

Tommy looked down at the gun near his feet and then back at his little brother. Finn licked his lips.

“Weren’t me.”

“So, what? Father-fuckin’-Christmas come down the chimney, did he, and decided he’d take rather than give for a change?”

Finn swallowed.

“I-“ he started.

“What the fuck’s goin’ on here then?”

There were heavy footfalls on the stairs and a moment later Arthur, crinkled and hungover, appeared behind Finn, blocking the lad’s only escape route. Tommy might have felt bad for him under less infuriating circumstances.

“Someone’s playin’ at being a desperado,” Tommy growled.

Arthur blinked a few times, regarding the damage with his head tilted sideways.

“Did you shoot the fuckin’ door, Finn?” he asked, with a good bit of menace in his tone.

“No,” Finn croaked as Arthur grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him into the front room proper.

“John leave his bloody shooter out again?” Arthur asked Tommy, as he looked through into the office, noting the bullet lodged in the wall and the broken picture on the floor.

Tommy shook his head and nodded towards the strong box.

“Ah, fuck me…” Arthur whacked Finn over the head with his free hand. “Right, you…”

“It weren’t me,” Finn protested, covering his head. “I’m fuckin’ telling you – ow – stop, Arthur!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy spotted a tiny movement behind the front room sofa. He turned his head fully, just in time to see a stockinged foot tucking itself away out of sight.

“Hold on, Arthur…”

Arthur, who’d not really gotten going yet, laid off Finn albeit without relinquishing his hold on him.

“Rosie?”

Nothing, for the longest time nothing. Then, very slowly, her head emerged over the back of the sofa.

“What’re you doin’ back there?” Tommy asked.

“Nothin’…” It took no time at all for her to start squirming under his gaze. “Hiding?”

“Why are you hiding, Rosie?”

“I…uhm…” Rose’s eyes darted over to Finn for the briefest instant. “I got scared when it went off…”

“The gun?”

“Yea.”

Tommy turned around and Finn blanched when he saw the look on his face, and rightly so. He was going to nail the little fucker to a tree. Playing with guns was bad enough on its own, but doing so with Rosie in the same room, sending her diving for safety…thank fuck, she’d had the sense to do so. This, Tommy realised with a barely suppressed shudder, could have gone all sorts of sideways. He was going knock his little brother into next week and fucking back again.

Tommy took a step forward and Finn, absurdly, attempted to hide himself behind Arthur.

“You…” Tommy said quietly, “…you could have blown her head off.”

“But-“

“Don’t you fucking say another word!” He was back to the roaring now and it seemed to be a particularly impressive display, because Arthur decided to acquiesce and let Finn take cover. “Out of the way, Arthur.”

“Yea, in a minute…” Arthur trying his hand at being the voice of reason was a new one, it didn’t reflect all that well on the state of affairs; but it wasn’t going to change the situation.

Tommy took another step towards his brothers, just making up his mind whether he should just deck Arthur to save time, when Rose appeared on the periphery.

“Go up, Rosie.”

“It weren’t Finn.”

“Go- what?”

His daughter certainly had his full attention now and she didn’t look at all thrilled about it all of a sudden.

“Ah…”

“What’d you say?”

Perhaps he’d not heard her right, it was possible. The blood pounding in his ears, drowning out anything that wasn’t rage, might have made him mishear.

“It…ah…it weren’t Finn,” Rose repeated weakly.

“Finn didn’t shoot the gun?”

“No.”

Finn was peering at them now, from behind the shelter of Arthur.

“No?” Tommy asked.

“No.”

“Right.” There was something in the way she was wringing her hands and avoiding his eye that gave Tommy a sinking feeling. “Who did then?”

“Dunno?” Rose offered.

Ah, fuck. Tommy could sense a whole new disaster coming up over the horizon, like the rising fucking sun.

“Look at me,” he said.

Rose lifted her eyes as though the effort of it was nearly breaking her. Tommy could see her small jaw tighten in such a familiar way it made his own hurt. He thought of asking her again, but there was little point, really; she knew what he wanted to know. Tommy locked eyes with his daughter and waited.

To her credit it took nearly a full minute…six long breaths…until she spoke up.

“I did.”

She didn’t drop her eyes, like Tommy’d expected her to. Suddenly Rose was the one waiting; waiting to see what would happen next, waiting to see what he would do. He’d have to do something, bloody hell, he’d been inches away from throwing Finn through the wall for the very thing his daughter’d just admitted to, he couldn’t very well let her get away with it now.

“Are you lying to me?” he asked.

She couldn’t possibly know how to fire a gun; she was barely six years of age. It was much more likely that she was trying to get Finn off the hook, she was a bit of a Robin Hood, Rosie.

“I’m not,” she said.

Of course, if it _had_ been Rose…

“Who got the box open?” Tommy demanded.

“Me…” Rose sighed.

“How?”

This was ridiculous, she had to be making it up.

“Stuck the whatsit under the lid and stood on it.”

That’d probably do it, he figured, even though she was light as anything. Fucking hell.

“He didn’t help?” Tommy nodded towards Finn, who was now next to Arthur rather than behind him, his face halfway between relief and outrage.

Rose shook her head.

“I wasn’t even down,” Finn snapped, giving Tommy a dirty look.

“Well, why didn’t you fucking say?” Tommy snapped back.

“I _did_ ,” Finn was nearly shouting. “But youse…” he stared angrily from one brother to the next “always just fucking whack people without listenin’.”

“Orright, keep your hair on.” Arthur put his giant hand on Finn’s head and rubbed it a little. “I’ll let you hit me back, eh?”

Rose, Tommy noticed, was very slowly backing away towards the kitchen.

“Hold it, you,” he barked and she froze immediately. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“ ‘cause you’re in for it now,” Arthur said helpfully and Tommy, to his great dismay, had to agree with him.

This was unchartered territory entirely. He’d been back for close to a year and there’d been no need to do anything more than a bit of growling when she got too big for her boots.

“Why?” Rose asked again, making no move to come any closer. In fact, she seemed to be actively calculating the best way to stay out of reach, judging from the way her eyes were frantically scanning the room.

“Just…come here.”

“No.”

Even though she was getting properly nervous, his daughter still managed to look at him like he was completely thick. Fair enough, really.

“Don’t make me come get you,” Tommy heard himself say.

It was nearly funny, turning into every father in every house up and down the street without any effort of his own, but only nearly. Rose came back slowly, as though she was walking on a frozen lake, testing whether the ice would hold with each step. He took her by the arm as soon as she was close enough, to prevent any further escape attempts.

“It was an accident,” Rose said.

“You broke the box open by accident?”

“No…” She was chewing her lip again. “But I didn’t mean to shoot…not really.”

“What was the plan then?”

He was only postponing the inevitable now, but he couldn’t help himself. Maybe she’d come up with something good enough and he’d be able to let it go; not that it seemed likely.

As it turned out, all Rose could come up with was a shrug. She’d nothing, Tommy could tell. She’d been bored on a rainy morning and the diversion she’d chosen had been to break open the box and play with a loaded fucking gun. That she’d not blown off a finger or her head or someone else’s was nothing more than luck. If someone’d left it out at least, John or Arthur or himself even, there’d been a little bit of blame left to place somewhere other than squarely on Rose’s shoulders.

“Nothing happened,” Rose muttered.

“Eh?”

He tightened his hold on her arm a bit and she looked up, her face set in a scowl.

“The door only,” she said.

Tommy reached down and whacked her on the back of the leg. Rose jumped and tried to dance out of the way when he drew back for another, but he’d a solid hold on her, she wasn’t going anyplace. The angle was awkward, Rose was writhing and Tommy felt like a bastard, but he managed to get her a few times nonetheless.

“Right, now you listen to me.”

Tommy stopped, took Rose’s chin in his hand and made her look at him. He could feel her clamp her jaw tight under his fingers.

“You do not touch the guns,” he said. “You don’t touch the guns and you don’t let someone else take your hiding for you.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed to near slits.

“I didn’t,” she said. “I said I was me.”

“If I hadn’t seen you, you’d have stayed behind there,” Tommy nodded to the sofa, “while we were ripping Finn a new one, and not come out til the coast was clear.”

Rose blushed and dropped her eyes.

“Now. D’you understand me?”

She mumbled something unintelligible and he whacked her again.

“Do you understand me, Rose?”

“Yes.”

She looked bloody miserable now, all traces of defiance gone. It was fucking awful. Tommy had done a lot worse to a fair few people, he’d inflicted far worse pain, but the look on her face made him want to get on his knees and beg her forgiveness.

“Right. Off you go.”

Rose squeezed past Arthur and Finn and disappeared up the stairs. Tommy turned, went into the office, brushed the broken glass off the fallen picture and laid it on the desk. He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes for a moment, getting himself ready for the next order of business.

#

Many, many hours later, Pol cornered him as he was coming out of the safe.

“Been laying down the law, have you?”

There were many things Tommy needed and this was not one of them; but Polly was leaning against the doorframe with a drink in one hand and that face on her, like she knew everything, like she knew your thoughts better than you did yourself.

“Just say what you have to say,” he said wearily.

“You did the right thing,” Pol said, toasting him with her whiskey.

“How?” He looked at her, keeping his gaze and tone level. “Fucking how?”

“D’you really need me to tell you?”

“Yea,” Tommy said, took the glass from her and downed half of it.

Polly held out her hand, he returned the glass and she knocked back the rest.

“She’ll not be doing that again,” she said.

“ ‘cause  she’s fucking afraid of me now…”

“Rosie’s better off being a bit afraid than being dead,” Polly said. “And if she’s not afraid of the bloody guns themselves, you’ll have to do.”

“That’s how it works, is it?” he asked darkly.

“Yes, Tommy, that’s how it works.” Polly held his stare with ease. “Just like the blue plate.”

“Green,” he corrected her.

“Blue, green, bloody orange…” Polly shrugged. “The point is, it bloody well worked. Only you’re not doing it to torment her, you’re doing it to keep her safe.”

#

His parents’ wedding cake had been served up on the green plate, if family lore was to be believed, and it was, for as long as Tommy could remember, the only truly pristine piece of crockery in the house. It lived on the small table in the front room, looking to all the world like a keepsake on display for sentimental reasons.

The green plate was rarely empty.

Its contents changed frequently but there was always something on it.

Coins.

Pencils.

There’d been a pair of shoes on it, on more than one occasion, they’d been Tommy’s twice and Arthur’s once.

The keys to the house.

A carton of eggs.

Sweets, fucking bags of them.

Taking things of the green plate was not allowed. It was forbidden on pain of fucking death.

It didn’t matter if the woman from next door was battering the door, demanding to be paid back last weeks loan, if there was cash on the green plate, that’s where it stayed. It didn’t matter if you needed were going to get the cuts at school for not bringing your book in; if it was on the green plate, you left it there. It didn’t matter if you were on the verge of tears because you were so hungry; if the cob was on the green plate, it was not for eating.

They’d learned very quickly; himself, Arthur and John, at any rate. Ada kept taking things off the green plate, _eating_ things off it, it was shocking. She was too little, they knew, but it was still horrible walking into the front room and finding the plate empty. One of them – himself or John or Arthur, mostly Arthur, really – would own up to it when the old man got in; Ada never got done once for any green plate business.

Even though he’d never seen him do it, Tommy had always suspected the old man sometimes cleared the green plate himself, just because he wanted a reason to blow off some steam. He certainly put things on it that were of no use to him at all; sometimes to punish someone, sometimes as some sort of test to see if the threat was still holding strong.

And it had worked, it had worked for years. Because they’d been afraid, really fucking afraid; until at some point, for Tommy at least, the fear had hardened to something not unlike hate – at which point he’d chucked the green plate over the wall into the scrappers, not giving two fucks about what the old man was going to do about it.  


#

Rose was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, pretending to smoke a pencil. Tommy watched her from the doorway. She was miles away, her eyes on the circle of light the lamp threw up above her bed, bringing the pencil to her lips as absentmindedly as any flapper having a break between dances.

“Still up, Rosie?”

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him, the pencil still between her fingers.

“I’m waiting for Finn,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

Arthur had taken Finn off with him on some wild mission to god-knew-where, to make up for hitting him for no good reason more than anything.

“To say sorry.” Rose rolled the pencil around and around. “For not coming out.”

“He mightn’t be back for a while,” Tommy said as he walked into the room.

“That’s orright. I’m not tired.”

He stopped at the end of her bed, hands in his pockets. Rose shifted over towards the wall, to make room for him to sit, so he did.

“Have you ever seen a real bear?” Rose asked.

Tommy smiled.

“No,” he said. “I tell you what I’ve seen but.”

This had become a ritual of sorts, the first one – well, the only one – that’d formed itself between them. He’d come up, if he was in, she’d ask about the bear and he’d tell her about something entirely different.

“What?” Rose leaned back and crossed her arms under her head.

“I’ve seen a horse steal a barge once.”

“You’ve not.”

The grin on her, she was fucking delighted.

“Chewed right through the rope and off it went,” he said. “Men running alongside the cut, trying to work out how to jump on without knocking the horse off. Absolute pandemonium.”

“Did it get away?”

“Yes.” He reached over and stuck his hand into her tangled hair. “And d’you know how?”

Rose shook her head, her scalp rough against his fingertips.

“ ‘cause the horse climbed onto the roof of the cabin,” Tommy went on. “And then, when it came to the next bridge, it couldn’t work out how to get under, so it jumped up instead. Right onto the bridge; you should’ve seen it, it was surprised as anything. Stood there for a moment and then it just bolted, never to be seen again.”

“It’s not true,” Rose said with a yawn.

“Accusing your own father of being a liar?” Tommy shook his head. “That’s shockin'.”

Rose smiled.

“Good night, Rosie.”

He gave her head a final scratch and stood up.

“Can I wait up for Finn still?” she asked.

“As long as you stay in bed.”

“Orright.”

“Orright then.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, my little love.”

As he walked back downstairs Tommy remembered another thing he’d once seen, a long time ago at a fair. There’d been a man on a tightrope, carrying a sack of horse shite in one hand and a sack of sugar in the other. You could bet on whether he’d drop one or whether he’d come off or something like that, and if you picked right, you won the sack of sugar. It was a bujo, probably. The bags were perfectly weighted, they were the very thing keeping him in balance. Maybe a man could avoid complete failure if only he managed to balance the shite and the sugar.

He’d tell Rosie about that another night.


End file.
